


A Dragon's Hoard

by circadian_rythm



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe, Family Bonding, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-23
Updated: 2018-12-20
Packaged: 2019-04-26 23:51:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14413146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/circadian_rythm/pseuds/circadian_rythm
Summary: A collection of ASOIAF drabbles associated with Rhaenys Targaryen and her siblings that is not canon for A Tale of Sand and Smoke. Most of them revolve around the idea of Rhaenys, Aegon, and Jon all being raised together as siblings.





	1. An Older Sibling's Duty

**Ask: Jon and Rhaenys being amazing siblings?**

* * *

 

_“Look after your brothers. You’re the eldest, it is your job to make sure they’re safe.”_

Rhaenys had ignored those words, the first time her mother had spoken them to her. Why should her two little brothers need her to look after them, when they had her mother, and uncle Oberyn, and uncle Doran, and Aunt Lyanna, and Ashara Dayne and  _all_ the servants in Sunspear? What could one little girl only three years older do? It was just another way for her mother to ruin her fun so  _she_ couldn’t go exploring with Obara and Nymeria and Sarella.

But then there was that gut wrenching guilt when she’d heard Jon cry out, and she’d rushed back in from the water gardens to see him sitting on the tiled floor, his knee torn up from a tumble. He and Aegon had tried to follow her and he’d stumbled down the last few steps.

“What’s wrong with him?” Sarella crouched down and inspected his knee.

Obara muttered something about clumsy little babies ruining everyone’s fun, and Nymeria put a hand on her hip and scoffed, “It isn’t even that bad. Stop bawling.”

“He’s hurt,” Rhaenys defended, even though she was just as irritated as they were. Now she was going to get in trouble, for letting him out of her sight. Even if the maids were already fussing over him, the damage had been done. Aegon sniffled beside his brother, more distraught at the sight of blood than hurt himself.

“It’s just a scrape,” Obara crossed her arms. “Are you coming or not?”

Rhaenys shook her head. She shot her brothers a glare, and felt her own frustrated tears well up to the surface. It wasn’t  _fair_. She never got to do anything fun with them around!

“Guess you’d better go back to the nursery with the  _babies_ ,” Nymeria taunted with a grin.

She tackled Nymeria to the ground as the older girl shrieked. They fell, a tangle of limbs as Nymeria scratched at Rhaenys’ arms and pounded on her back. “Get off!”

Her scalp burned, as Obara grabbed her by the hair and tried to drag her off Nymeria. Rhaenys landed a last minute kick on Nymeria before she was thrown to the side and both of the young sand snakes descended on her with kicks and punches.

Rhaenys curled up to keep her head safe, and that’s when she heard Nymeria yelp, and the kicking stopped. She looked up in time to see Jon latched on to Nymeria’s leg, his teeth sunk into her arm. Aegon was pummeling at Obara’s back with tiny fists.

_That_ was when the maids descended on them all, pulling the boys back as some of the palace guards pulled Obara and Nymeria away from Rhaenys. Sarella stood off to the side, unharmed, eyes wide.

“Are you alright, your highness?” One of the maids fretted, but Rhaenys pushed past her and looked over at her brothers. “You two shoulda stayed put!” It was hard to talk, when her nose hurt so bad. She sniffled and began to cry. 

Years later, Rhaenys Targaryen stared down from the Wall, at the approaching mass of the undead horde. She looked to her left and her right, at her two brothers beside her. “You two should have stayed put in Sunspear.”

“I’m not very excited at the prospect of seeing all these corpses in the desert heat. Just imagine the stink,” Aegon drawled, “Best to deal with them up here where your nose is too stuffed up to smell a thing.” He sniffed to illustrate his point.

Rhaenys gave an unladylike snort, and turned to see Jon shake his head with a small smile, before his eyes turned back to the dead. “We stay together.” He said, voice soft. “We  _fight_ together.”

“And chances are we die together,” Aegon quipped, “But at least I have good company.”

Rhaenys’ grip tightened on her spear as she remembered her mother’s words. 

_“Look after your brothers. You’re the eldest, it is your job to make sure they’re safe.”_

She hoped she’d make her mother proud. 

 


	2. Just Breathe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ask: I noticed that you love asoiaf like me and I love you writing , so I though I’d ask for you for one of the suggested prompts in your blog “Look at me - just breathe, okay?” For an asoiaf pairing, I love Jonrya but I totally understand it if it’s not your cup of tea and you would prefer doing another pairing :)
> 
> Response: I thought I’d write some familial bonding for them instead, I hope that’s alright! I set this in my arbitrary “Rhaenys, Jon, and Aegon are raised together” AU.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings for character death

Jon is the quietest of his siblings; the youngest, the most somber, the  _palest_. Sunburn is a constant companion to his childhood, and no matter how much ointment his mother smears on him, it always washes off in the Water Gardens. Or, sometimes, deliberately.

Jon wants to look like his siblings. He wants to  _belong_. He wants to look properly Dornish, like his big sister Rhaenys, whom he follows around like a lost puppy from the moment he can walk. Even Aegon, despite his Targaryen hair and lighter complexion, still looks like a  _Martell_. He hates that he is so obviously the odd one out, even if his siblings do not treat him as such.

Withdrawn fits of melancholy are a gift of his late father, he learns. Another polarizing bit of personhood that has him standing on the outside of his own family.

It isn’t until he’s a bit older that he realizes that his siblings feel as separate as he does; because they’re not Martells either, just like he’s not a Stark. They carry their mothers’ looks but their father’s name, all three. 

Targaryen.

And while he doesn’t look Dornish, at least he doesn’t look Targaryen. He remembers when he and Aegon were ten, and Rhaenys had helped Aegon dye his hair black as pitch, to hide the white legacy of their father; a temporary solution that had done little to hide the truth of his parentage. He remembers the first time he saw Rhaenys practicing her spearwork with Uncle Oberyn, and saw the light shine off of deep violet eyes, and thought “that is what a dragon looks like”.

When he’s twelve, it is deemed safe enough for his mother Lyanna and himself to visit the North. He’s nervous, and more than a little unsure of leaving his siblings behind; Aegon will write, at least, to keep him informed, but Rhaenys might go on an  _adventure_ while he’s gone. What if she finally gets that boat Uncle Oberyn promised her and sails off to Old Valyria without him?

When they arrive at Winterfell, he meets his Uncle Ned for the first time—second time, his mother reminds him. Eddard had come to Dorne secretly when he’d learned of Jon’s birth, to see his sister and her son and deemed it safer for them to remain unknown in Dorne then face the wrath of his late friend, Robert Baratheon. 

He is shorter than Jon thought he’d be, but he shares such a solemnity and sternness that Jon feels an instant kindred spirit. It eases the odd tightness in his chest, the part of him that thought he’d come here and they would take one look at him and tell Lyanna to take her Targaryen child away.

And then he meets his cousins.

Robb is wary of this newcomer to the fold; protective of his siblings, every inch the eldest and the heir. A warrior, and a leader, and confident in his place in a way that reminds Jon terribly of Rhaenys. It doesn’t take long for Robb and Theon Greyjoy to pull him into their antics.

Sansa is pretty, and polite, and curious about life in Dorne, but she is too much a lady already to ask him about it.

Arya is not.

Arya, who everyone says looks like his mother did at her age, who has all her wildness (a wildness Jon had always thought the hallmark of a Stark, with only his mother as an example before this). She latches on to Jon the moment they arrive, and peppers him with questions while Bran and Rickon clamber over Old Nan, and Sansa sits near the window with her embroidery and tries to look like she’s not listening intently.

“Does everyone in Dorne carry spears? Is it true that girls get to wear pants? And that they get to fight? Why didn’t you bring Princess Rhaenys with you?”

He learns early on that he’s playing second fiddle to his sister. But he’s twelve, and the opinion of a young rambunctious girl matters less than that of the boys his age, so he doesn’t take it as personally as he would otherwise. It still stings, in that way it always has, the idea that he’s second best and other.

But Arya’s curiosity never seems abated, and after a while it turns toward him, and not his more infamous elder sister. 

“Did you like living in Sunspear? Are they nice to you there? Could you teach me to fight with a sword like yours? Are you going to leave us?”

The last line is a surprise, and a rush of fondness he’d never felt for anyone but his mothers and siblings fills him like a warm summer’s sun. 

Arya’s rambunctiousness comes, he learns, from not being taken seriously by her siblings; brothers that placate and find her desire to be a fighter a flight of fancy, and a sister she cannot relate to for lack of similarities. 

Jon likes it, that she comes to him, and even if Robb and Theon tease him mercilessly on the days he declines a hunt to show Arya how to strengthen her sword-fighting stance, the look of adoration on Arya’s face more than makes up for it.

“Have you ever seen someone die?” Arya asks one afternoon, as she sets her footing, grip tightening around the slender hilt of her newly smithed sword. Needle, she’d named it, when he’d given it to her as a nameday present,  _“All good swords have names, you know.”_

“No,” Jon answers, coming up behind her to fix her grip. The closest he can think of is when Aegon’s favorite pony had been bitten by a venomous snake, and Sir Arthur had put her down to save her from a slow and painful death. He’d been young, but the sight of the life draining from her eyes had haunted him for several months.

“How do you kill a man, do you think?”

“Stick him with the pointy end, I imagine,” Jon jokes, to wash the bitter memory away. He holds up his own training sword, and helps her through an exercise. 

It doesn’t take long to find a place for him in Winterfell, to find his place as a Stark, a name that sticks itself in that safe haven against his ribs and runs through his blood like it was meant to be. And when the direwolves are found and Robb hands the small, white, wiggling runt to him, he finds it hurts a bit to breathe.

“The runt of a litter for the Targaryen,” Theon scoffs, but Jon barely registers the jibe.

A direwolf, the sigil of the North. His in a way that no one can deny. Ghost, he names him, and everyone thinks it’s for his fur. But he’s the spirit of all the uncertainties Jon’s ever had about himself: buried finally, but still present; not fully laid to rest, but bearable.

—

Rhaenys and Aegon are insanely jealous when Jon returns to Sunspear with him. Ghost spends most of his time in the Water Gardens, panting in the shade or swimming in the water to cool down. Dornish weather does not agree with him, and neither, Jon realizes, does it agree with him. Not  _anymore_ , at least. He’d always been weak to the heat, but it had been bearable. Now he finds himself keeping Ghost company in the shade more often than not.

“You spent too much time in the North, you’ve been ruined for the sun,” Rhaenys jokes as she slides down next to him on the cool stone bench and idly scratches Ghost between his ears. Her voice is thoughtful and more than a little worried, like she’s afraid something’s changed.

And it has, he knows, but not in the way she thinks. He’s found another piece of himself in the North, a piece he’d needed; but it won’t replace the part of him that belongs with his brother and sister. 

“Jon’s just grateful he found a place he can walk outside without getting sunburnt,” Aegon quips, taking the spot on Jon’s other side. “Our baby brother needs to embrace his strengths where he can.”

Rhaenys scoffs, and reaches over Jon’s head to hit Aegon with a fond smile, and Jon finds a smile of his own stretching across his lips. He’d worried a bit himself, that he’d changed too much and that his siblings wouldn’t feel the same about him now that he’d become a Northerner in full.

But he knows he isn’t the only one that’s changed in the year he’s been away. Both his siblings are taller, and confident in a way he envies; Rhaenys is seventeen now and looks more and more like their mother Elia with each passing day, and Aegon, despite being only half a year older than Jon, is a head taller, willowy and more a Targaryen than either of his siblings in appearance.

_He doesn’t dye his hair anymore_ , Jon thinks in surprise. Aegon catches his eye and fingers a lock of white hair with an odd look that Jon can’t quite place. “My skin looks darker, when it’s this color.”  _My skin looks more Dornish_ , is what he means, of course, and Jon can’t deny it, or fault him for wanting it that way.

His sister’s eyes are different too, but not in color. There’s something hollow behind them, a look that worries him. 

Aegon tells him later, about a hidden blade in the night and a thwarted attempt on their sister’s life that had ended in the death of her friend and lover, Teora Toland. 

Jon remembers Teora vaguely: plump and shy and so unlike her elder sister who he’d found unnervingly beautiful at twelve, and even more so now at thirteen. She’d had visions, his cousins the Sand Snakes claimed; prophecies, some whispered.

“Rhaenys killed the man that did it,” Aegon whispers. “No one knows how he got so close, to get into her bedroom. He didn’t know Teora would be there. If she hadn’t been…” He trails off, voice tight.

Jon swallows. He wasn’t there when his sister needed him, had been running around the North while Rhaenys had nearly  _died_. He knows he shouldn’t be grateful that Teora had died instead of her, but he is. He hopes it doesn’t make him a bad person.

He finds his sister the next morning, and asks her if she’d like to talk about it. She tells him, in a voice so soft and full of grief he barely recognizes it as her own, about Teora’s death; of her last, whispered words as the life had drained out of her in his sister’s arms.

“She had dreams, you know,” Rhaenys murmurs, staring down at her feet in the water. A few fish swim lazily around their ankles, as Jon waits for her to continue. “Some people called them prophecies. You know how I hate that.  _Prophecies_ ,” She gives a derisive scoff, and kicks her foot, the fish darting back at the movement. “Father believed in prophecies and got himself killed because of it. People will do anything to twist the words of prophecy to truth, even if it means destroying what should have been. But Jon…Jon she had one before she died. Told it to me, instead of  _listening_ when I told her I loved her, and to hold on until the Maester arrived.”

His sister reaches a hand up, to scrub tears from her cheeks. “She never said it back. Just kept repeating her stupid,  _stupid_ dream.” 

Jon holds her as she cries, and can’t help but wonder if the hollowness in his sister’s gaze would have lessened with three words, instead of more of the promises of Targaryen greatness that they’ve been running from since birth.

—

Jon is fifteen, the next time he sees Arya. He’s walking through the courtyard of his mother’s Sunspear palace when a shriek echoes so loud that even the howler monkeys in the orange trees nearby go silent, and it takes a moment for him to realize it’s someone calling his name before he finds himself tackled to the ground.

Arya grins down at him, hair a wild, tangled mess of brown curls escaping a sloppily braided plait. “Father said I could come visit you!” 

Jon tries to smile back, but Needle’s hilt is digging into his ribs and he can’t find enough air in his lungs to greet her. It takes a minute or so for him to get to his feet and manage it, while Arya stands a few feet away with her hands behind her back, looking impish and only a little guilty.

She’s grown; still shorter than him, with baby fat clinging to her cheeks and arms, but looking more like his mother than before. More like  _him_. Before he can say anything else he hears a startled scream, and both he and Arya turn to the door as Arya’s face falls and she runs for the arched hallway with a yell of, “ _Nymeria_ , I told you to stay with Robb!”

—

Arya becomes a quick favorite with his cousins the Sand Snakes, particularly Nymeria, who finds her direwolf counterpart to be a proper and worthy holder of the name. Arya seems both pleased and a little overwhelmed at all the attention she receives, and the sight of so many women wielding weapons.

“Jon, how could you ever leave here? If I lived in Dorne I’d  _never_ leave,” She gushes over dinner one evening, unable to keep her eyes off the dagger Nymeria had gifted her that afternoon. 

His sister had been gone on a trip with Princess Arianne, surveying some of Dorne’s noble families, but comes to see Lyanna and Jon’s honored guests the moment she’s washed the dust off her skin, dragging Aegon with her.

Arya had met Aegon days earlier, with little of the hero-worship she held for Rhaenys. “My sister would like you,” Arya had told him, as if it were the only compliment she could muster, and that only barely. Jon supposes that a well-spoken musician with a penchant for court politics was of very little interest to a young girl that wanted nothing more than to become a knight.

“I’ll take that as a sign that your sister has good taste,” Aegon had drawled, and had managed to earn Arya’s approval, if not affection, by the end of the evening through the telling of several embarrassing stories at Jon’s expense.

The look of barely contained excitement on Arya’s face at the sight of his sister is amusing to behold, even if it does make him a little wistful for the days in Winterfell when she’d followed him like a shadow. By the end of the night he fears he’s no longer  _the favorite_ , a title he hadn’t realized he’d coveted before. 

“She’s different than what I expected,” Arya confides a few days later, after a training session with Rhaenys and the gift of a well-crafted spear that Arya is more than eager to begin practicing with immediately. “She likes  _dresses_.”

Jon can’t help laughing at that. “You can like fighting  _and_ dresses.”

“I guess,” Arya seems doubtful of that, and something in her tone eases the worry in Jon’s chest. 

He’s still the favorite. 

—

When the Dead rise, Jon and his siblings go to meet them on the battlefield. Initially Aegon argues against it. (“Let the North deal with the Dead, we have other battles to fight.”) And it’s true, with their Uncle Viserys posing a great threat in King’s Landing, and the debate over legitimacy, and Rhaenys’ potential claim to the throne. 

They know now, who sent the hired assassin in the night to kill her, who killed her heart instead.

But Jon is of the North just as much as he is of the South. His cousins are in danger, and wolves fight in packs. They need him, just as his siblings need him. Arya needs him, and what kind of favorite cousin would he be if he left her to fight the dead alone?

It is Rhaenys who makes the final decision. “We go North.”

Aegon’s eyes narrow, “I thought you hated prophecies.”

Rhaenys says nothing, but the look on her face is enough. Jon doesn’t know what Teora Toland told Rhaenys the night she died and he doesn’t think anyone ever will. 

His sister hates prophecies, he knows. But he thinks she might still believe in them.

—

_Arya_  is fifteen the next time they meet, at Winterfell. Needle remains attached to her hip, but it is a larger blade she wields now, one fit for battling more than a single opponent; white walkers do not duel, after all.

Wrapped in a cloak and surrounded by snow, Jon feels more at home than he ever has before. He feels badly for his siblings, who look miserable in the cold and out of their element. 

The Northern Lords regard Rhaenys and Aegon with caution; Jon may have Northern blood but they do not, and they look more Targaryen than he ever has.

Viserys has not made himself popular, and everyone remembers when Eddard Stark’s father and brother went to King’s Landing while the Mad King reigned.

Jon’s sister meets their gazes, unflinching, and if anyone deigns to call her a Dornish whore, they do so in private. Jon hears about it though; how Greatjon Umber called her sand rat, and of Robb setting Greywind loose upon him before Eddard called both son and wolf to heel.

If it weren’t for Lord Umber’s subsequent missing fingers, Jon knows he would have personally made the man pay for the insolence. And he knows despite it, he will need to keep an eye on Aegon, who does not forgive quite as easily and who is likely planning the man’s downfall should they all survive the winter.

—

“Rhaenys should be queen.” Arya stares out across the wall, eyes trained on the treeline. “Viserys isn’t here defending the North, but she is.”

It is late, and Arya should be asleep, not prowling Winterfell’s walls like one of the sentries. But she’d found him hiding from slumber as well, and he cannot deny he could use the company. Her cheeks are red and chafed from the wind, and her eyes are red rimmed—frustrated tears, from a fruitless argument with her father on joining the armies heading to the Wall.

“She should be queen,” Arya repeats, looking straight ahead.

Jon thinks about his sister, sitting with Lord Eddard and Robb and the Northern Lords, pouring over battle plans—wrapped in a mountain of furs because the North is cold and it is not in her blood, but she believes she owes these people her aid nonetheless.

“She should,” Jon agrees. “But no one will be ruling anything if we’re all dead.”

Arya shoots him an impish grin, warmth returning to her face, “Do you think she’ll let me be a member of her queensguard?”

—

“You are not supposed to be here.”

Jon has never heard Robb yell, but he thinks now might possibly be the first. Barely checked fury is etched into the line of his jaw, and the thinness of his lips as he presses them together to keep from shouting.

Arya stares at him defiantly, Nymeria at her side and sword in hand; armed and armored and every inch a warrior. “I can fight.”

“You are needed at Winterfell,” Robb seethes, “I am sending you back, before father discovers you’ve arrived—”

The door opens, and Lord Eddard himself walks into the hall with Rhaenys and Night Commander Mormont. Arya involuntarily blanches as her father’s gaze lands on her, and his frown deepens.

“Arya.”

“Father, I…” She swallows. “I deserve to fight for myself.”

The room is silent, but Jon can see the look in his uncle’s eyes. Eddard is not going to allow Arya to fight; he’s going to send her home, to Winterfell. Obara and Nymeria exchange looks with Rhaenys, and Jon knows what they’re all thinking.  _Let her fight._

Jon doesn’t want her to fight. He wants to her to remain safe in Winterfell with his mothers and Aunt Catlyn and Sansa. He wants everyone he loves to remain safe. But if no one fights, they’ll all die. And even if he doesn’t want his little cousin to do so, he has no right to deny her.

Jon takes a step forward. “Uncle, Arya deserves to choose for herself.”

Robb lets out a strangled curse, and Eddard turns toward Jon with that same solemn expression. It is Rhaenys who steps in to break the tension, laying a hand on Jon’s shoulder; an anchor. “My brother is right, Lord Stark. If we do not all fight, then we will all perish.”

Lord Eddard says nothing more, but the look he gives Jon tells him all he wishes to know. The world is too cruel and violent for Lord Stark to protect his daughters…and he has run out of the strength to make himself believe he can.

—

Jon soon forgets what it was like to have a good night’s sleep. He wakes in the darkness to the sound of wolf howls and is unsure if it is night or day. The sun rarely seems to shine on the wall, and the heavy blanket of snow and frost blocks out what meager sunlight may have existed.

His siblings huddle together for warmth and it reminds him of simpler times, when he and Aegon would slip into Rhaenys’ room after a nightmare, or all three would go to find their mothers after a telltale bump in the night had them scurrying for safety (often after an evening of frightening stories from Princess Arianne and Nymeria Sand). He remembers being curled up together in Rhaenys’ bedroom in Sunspear, with the sound of the wind whistling past the open window.

Now the three huddle beneath fur, the air cold and sharp and sapping away any warmth that escapes. There is comfort, in the steady presence of others in the night, even if one of them is often called away for a meeting, or to the wall.

The battles are…nightmarish. It is difficult to find rest at all, after setting eyes on the undead. There are thousands upon thousands of them, and no matter how many the army of the living destroys, their numbers never wane.

When their own fall they are burned, so that the bodies do not rise against them the next morning. The air is thick with smoke. It is a blessing that the cold hides the smell of rot, but it cannot hide the smell of burnt flesh.

Arya knocks on the door to the siblings’ room one night, with the telltale signs of a nightmare only moments passed. She stands in the doorway, unsure, gaze trained on the floor; her expression is determined, because Arya dislikes showing weakness more than anything.

If she went to her father or brother for comfort, they would take it as a sign of her resolve crumbling; they would order her to return to Winterfell. And so it is Jon she comes to, in her moment of weakness, because Jon understands.

Jon glances back at his siblings; Aegon’s only response is to sigh and shift a bit on the bed to make room, while Rhaenys gives a nod, and asks Arya if she’d like to sleep with them for the night.

It becomes routine, after that, to wake in the darkness to find Arya slipping into bed with them, and even if Aegon grumbles about less room to stretch his legs, no one asks her to leave.

Some nights she and Jon lay awake, whispered conversations eating up the silence and lessening the fear of the day to come, or to speak of the fallen. Jon does not like to tally how many have died, both those he knew and those he did not, but it helps Arya to speak of them.

“Thank you Jon,” She whispers one night, half asleep. In the fading light of the dying fire in the hearth, Jon can see the outline of her face, eyes shining like coals.

He reaches out a hand and ruffles her hair, like he’d done so many years ago. “Goodnight, Arya.”

—

It happens so quickly.

She doesn’t make a sound, when the spear goes through her stomach, but the whoosh of air through her parted lips seems to echo across the battlefield. 

Nymeria lets out an ear-splitting howl; the sound chills him to the bone, as the other wolves join in, Ghost among them.

Jon drops to his knees beside her, the roar of the battle muffled around him, like he’s trapped underwater and everything else is above the surface; everything but him and Arya, who looks up at him with wide eyes and blood bubbling up from her lips.

She doesn’t say anything— _can’t_  say anything, it comes out as a cough, and more blood flecks against his breastplate. Her mouth is forming words, his name, he thinks.  _Jon_.  _Jon_.

She’s afraid, as she fumbles for his hand, fingers slipping on ice-covered steel, but he grabs it before it falls to the ground. “Look at me,” Jon pleads, holding her hand so tight he’s certain he can hear the bones snapping, “Just breathe, ok?”

She nods, but he can see it, see the light dimming in her eyes, like the life fading from Aegon’s favorite mare. No no no, this is  _Arya_. This is his cousin. His little cousin who is supposed to grow up and become a knight and be in his sister’s queensguard.

He wonders how Teora Toland could have told Rhaenys a prophecy as she lay dying, when Arya can’t even say his name. She tries again, breath coming out as soft whistle, blood frothing at the corners of her mouth.  _Jon_ , her mouth forms the word, but it never makes it past her lips.

“Just breathe,” Jon repeats, looking around for help, for anyone that can  _fix_  this. Nymeria whines, circling them both.

She’s  _dying_. Arya is going to die. His little cousin, who wanted nothing more than to prove herself just as good as her brothers. Arya, who followed him like a duckling around Winterfell. Arya, the first person to ask him to make him feel like he was allowed to be a Stark.

The tears on his cheeks have frozen by the time his brother and sister drag him off the battlefield, still clutching Arya’s body.

—


	3. King's Landing AU: A Queen Crowned

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> King's Landing AU: someone asked for a happier AU where Rhaenys is crowned queen. So in this au Rhaegar dies but Tywin Lannister puts Rhaenys up as the heir and she is crowned queen and Robert's Rebellion fails. All King's Landing AU drabbles will be tagged as such.

One of Rhaenys’ earliest memories was of sitting atop the Iron Throne.

There were flickers of others, moments of lucidity among foggy recollections; the look upon her mother’s face as her father had given a token to another woman at a tourney, the sound of her father’s harp, the day her Uncle Viserys had called her “sand rat” and her grandfather had laughed.

But none were as clear in her mind as that day, when the screams had ended, and her mother had placed a heavy crown atop her head, bloodied hands trembling.

The air still smelled of smoke and the metallic tang of blood wafted through the throne room as shadows danced among the dragon skulls adorning the walls. The flickering torchlight made their eyes gleam, and their crooked grins seemed to stretch the more she looked at them. It was frightening, even though she knew she was not supposed to be afraid.  _You are a dragon, and dragons are not afraid_ , that was what her father always told her. 

Still, she wished that she had been allowed to bring Balerion. She could feel the cold metal even beneath the cushion that had been given to her, and her little legs barely reached the edge of the seat. Her hands were placed firmly in her lap, as her mother had instructed.

“ _The edges are sharp, you could get hurt.”_

Jaime Lannister stood to her right, armor polished bright, expression unreadable. He’d been the first to bow before her and swear fealty, as her mother had stood behind her, hand warm and steady upon her back.

He had smiled when he had caught her looking, and she’d smiled back. Even though he’d seemed afraid, he’d made certain to smile at her.

She’d sat there for what felt like hours, as people came and bowed, and swore their loyalty to her. They called her “Your Grace” instead of “Your Highness” and she’d tried to tell them they were saying it wrong but her mother said she was a grace now and not a highness anymore, so it was alright.

_Only princesses are highnesses. You are a queen._

But her  _mother_  was supposed to be queen, when her grandfather died. She was supposed to be queen, and her papa would be king. That was the way things were supposed to be. Her papa had told her so.

“Where is papa?” She’d asked Sir Jaime, but he hadn’t seemed able to answer. Her mother had simply shook her head, and tucked a curl behind her ear.

Men in gold cloaks had lined the hall, and came and went to speak with Sir Jaime and her mother. They’d spoken to them, but they’d continued to bow to  _her_  and say “your grace” as if they’d been telling her all along. She did not know what they were talking about, but they mentioned wildfire, and streets, and “storing in safe places”.

Rhaenys had just wanted to sleep. It was past her bedtime, and she’d worried that her mother may have forgotten that she was supposed to read Rhaenys a bedtime story tonight. It had been hard to keep her eyes open, and only the reminder that the throne was sharp and could cut her had kept her from curling up against it and falling asleep.

When Lord Tywin arrived he’d knelt as well, but there had been something different about his eyes when they’d met hers.

Cold. Calculating. Things she had been unable to discern at so young and age, but that stuck with her for years after.

“Have the rest of the Kingsguard sworn their oaths?”

“Yes, father all who are in King’s Landing,” Sir Jaime had nodded, voice weary. “It is done.”

Her mother had placed her hand upon her shoulder once more, before she had stepped forward and held out something gold and glittering to Tywin Lannister.

“For your service to the realm,” She had said, as she’d pinned the golden hand of the king upon his breast.


	4. King's Landing AU - Meeting Family

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Queen Rhaenys meets Prince Oberyn of Dorne.

Rhaenys is eight years old when she meets her uncle for the first time. She has met him before, her mother tells her, but she doesn’t  _remember_  because she was just a baby then, so it surely hadn’t counted.

She’s excited.

Aside from her mother, she has not met anyone who looks like her. Even her little brother Aegon looks far more like their father than a Dornishman. She wonders if her uncle will like her, and think she is very queenly because she has been studying very hard and has been told on several occasions that she has a “royal presence” which Septa Aliss tells her is a good thing.

Lord Tywin tells her it is important to be queenly, because she is the symbol of the throne, and that means she has to make sure she doesn’t do anything foolish. It is difficult, sometimes, when court drags on and her legs start to itch from not moving, and her stomach starts to growl and the courtiers talk for so long. She doesn’t even make decisions, not really, she nods and accepts their bows and well-wishes as seriously as she can, but it is her mother and Lord Tywin and her council that decide on difficult things.

Her mother says that when she’s a bit older, and she’s done more of her lessons, she’ll sit in on the small council meetings and then she’ll understand more of what is being said. At the moment all she wants is to get court over so she can go play in the garden with Margaery Tyrell and her aunt Dany. After lessons  _they_  get to go and play, but she has to hold court until it is nearly time for dinner, and in some days after dinner she has to go to the big map room and have  _more_ lessons about her kingdom with Lord Tywin and she doesn’t get to play at  _all_.

It isn’t fair. Being a queen isn’t fun at all. Aegon is lucky because he’s just a prince and he gets to be a  _knight_  one day and he always gets to go play all the time.

Today, however, a special court will be held because her uncle is coming with tribute from Dorne, and there will be a giant feast with all of her favorite foods. It makes up for not getting to play today, at least a little.

When the doors open and the procession from Dorne enters, Rhaenys has to stifle a gasp of delight (it is not queenly to giggle or to gasp); their outfits are so colorful, and brightly embroidered, and  _they look like her_!

Rhaenys smiles, she can’t help it, but she does manage not to show her teeth, as that is entirely unladylike. Septa Aliss would make her do extra embroidery if she found out Rhaenys had “bared her teeth like a wild animal”.

The man in the front of the retinue is her uncle, Prince Oberyn. He looks like her mama, and he won’t stop looking at  _her_ ; when he sees her smile he grins and offers a wink, and she does giggle, just a little bit.

Lord Tywin’s lip thins, and she knows she’s going to get a lesson on court etiquette later, but she is too happy to care.

“Dorne wishes Her Grace Queen Rhaenys a long and prosperous reign, and pledges its loyalty and arms to her.”

Rhaenys knows what she’s supposed to say back, so she sits up a bit straighter and nods  _just_  a tiny bit, so that her crow doesn’t slip. “I am most pleased, and gladly accept your pledge of loyalty.”

“As a token of Prince Doran’s regard, my brother has sent this gift for the queen.” Prince Oberyn motions, and a finely dressed herald steps forward carrying an object draped in golden cloth. Prince Oberyn lifts the fabric, and holds aloft a long, slender sword.

Behind her Ser Jaime and Ser Barriston stiffen, hands on their own sword hilts and she hears their armor rattle, but they do not step forward. Ser Arthur steps down and takes the weapon from the Prince and walks it up the stairs toward her.

Rhaenys keeps her hands firmly in her lap, and has to clasp them together to make sure she doesn’t reach out and cut herself. “Your Grace,” Ser Arthur holds the blade out for her inspection.

The sword is slimmer than the blades that the queensguard wield, but it is just as long and has a soft curve to it. The hilt is ornately decorated with a dragon’s head grasping a sun in its jaws—Rhaenys’ standard—in gold.

“That is Valyrian steel,” Lord Tywin announces, and there is a wistful bitterness to his voice that Rhaenys has not heard before.

A sword. A real sword, just for her! And it’s valyrian steel! “Does it have a name?” She asks, leaning forward. Ser Arthur Dayne slides the blade into its decorative scabbard and lets her hold it, despite the disapproving look in Lord Tywin’s eyes.

She can feel the weight of it, even though Ser Arthur is still holding most of it. She wonders if she’ll ever be able to hold it all by herself. If she tried to pick it up now she is certain she would drop it. It is almost as long as she is!

“ _Queen_ _s_ _flame_ , Your grace. Newly forged for you.”

_Queensflame. Her own sword._

 

* * *

 

Later that evening, in her mother’s chambers, her uncle grabs her up in a large, warm hug. He smells like wine and spices and she hugs him back eagerly. He places her on the couch and sits beside her, “Now let’s get a good look at you.” He grins, “Not a drop of your father, thank the seven.”

“Oberyn,” Elia says with warning, but Oberyn just laughs.

Rhaenys shakes her head, “If you look  _really_  close, sometimes my eyes look purple.” It is an old argument, and she makes it only because she’s heard that some people don’t think her papa was her papa at all. It scares her mama when they talk like that.

“So they are,” Oberyn says, as he pets her head. “Would you like to see the gifts I’ve brought you, your grace?”

More gifts? Rhaenys nods eagerly. “I thought Queensflame was my present!” The sword is currently stored in the chest at the foot of her bed, locked so that she and her bedmates Margaery and Dany do not open it and cut themselves.

“This dress is for you,” Oberyn pulls out a length of rust colored fabric, embroidered delicately with golden suns and flowers. It is a Dornish dress, with a black sash and black and gold slippers. Black and red are her father’s colors, the colors of House Targaryen, but the red is just shy of the crimson Rhaenys usually sees; warmer, especially with the golden embroidery.

She likes it. “Thank you!”

“Your last gift is in the stables. Every proper Dornish queen needs a proper Dornish horse.”

“A real life horse?” Rhaenys has only ever had a pony—a gentle thing she’d named Patience because he never got angry no matter how many times it took her to climb into the saddle.

“She’s much too young for a horse,” Elia frowns, but there is a wistful look in her eyes. Rhaenys wonders if her mother misses riding Dornish horses. It seems like a difficult thing to do, leaving home and going someplace so different.

“She’ll be able in a year or so,” Oberyn shrugs.

Elia sighs, and can’t help the smile that turns up the corners of her mouth. “In the morning then, we can show Rhaenys her proper Dornish horse.”

The next day, after Oberyn gifts her the rust-colored stallion and her mother trots him up and down the stable-yard with a smile and Rhaenys firmly in her lap, Lord Tywin makes her spend three weeks studying the history of the Riverlands.

Riding that beautiful horse and hearing her mother laugh is worth every hour of studying, she decides.

One day, one day she’ll visit Dorne with her mother, and buy her  _twenty_  Dornish horses. That way, her mother will never be homesick again.

**Author's Note:**

> If you'd like to suggest a prompt, feel free to do so within the comments, or on my tumblr, which can be found [here.](http://justanartsysideblog.tumblr.com/)


End file.
